Sudden Angelfish Death?

[Mr Melt]

Allright lads;

I've had my Angels for near a year now (Shadow the female and Marble the male - both are Super veiltails); however this morning I turned my tanklights on to discover Shadow lying on my swordplant, dead. As she shows no discolouration whatsoever I assume she died only recently. The worst thing is that she showed absolutely no signs of illness or strange behaviour whatsoever the night before or during the week.

Check my sig if you are interested in her tankmates and setup - I mean she was in there with GBR's, and they are both fine, so I'm completely stumped as to how she died =/

Quick check of all my fish shows they are all fine; no stress signs or white spot on any of them.

Liquid test kit shows 0.1ppm for ammonia (probably due to a big tank cleaning I did the other day) and 10ppm for nitrates, nitrites are at 0.

I'm devastated like; out of all the fish in that tank I've had them the longest..... =/

Any ideas people?

 

[Mr Melt]

PS - should note that if I recall her behaviour over the past few days nothing seemed particularly out of the ordinary, except that she tended to hide around the back of my bogwood in the tank (out of view), instead of out front. Although as I said before she showed no other signs of injury or illness..... especially as when it came to feeding time she zoomed towards my hands like a rocket. Could it be a feeding related issue? I tend to feed my tanks frozen bloodworms once every 2 days; recently I've tried alternatives but the fish tend to reject the other foodstuffs (eg. spirulina/brine shrimp etc)...

Also I fed them a bit of fish flakes last night (as a bit of change in diet); mind you it was very little, but I haven't fed them the flakes in ages.....

Could that have contributed to her death?

 

[Mr Melt]

Does no one have any idea?

 

[fluttermoth]

Please don't take any of my questions as in any way rude or condesending; just trying to get to help you get to the bottom of things.

How did you sex the angels?

Bloodworm is really not a very healthy diet for fish, and should only be feed once or twice a week, not as a staple, as it's not actually very nutritious. How long have you been feeding them like this?

It's very common for cichlids to get 'fixated' on one kind of food (normally something that's not very good for them!) and you might need to starve them out to get them to take something more suitable.

My best guesses fo what happend are either your pair weren't a 'true' pair, and they've reached sexually maturity and had a dominance battle, or they were a true pair and had some sort of falling out; my first pair of angels spawned many times, and then one day the male suddenly decided to turn on his mate for no reason (he was a black marble too; I've heard since that they can be a particularly aggressive strain of angel).

Or it's some sort of digestive/nutritional problem from an unbalanced diet.

Hope some of that sheds light on your situation and helps you work out what might have gone wrong; angels are beautiful fish and I'm very attached to mine too (another black marble that turned on his mate....will i never learn? ) it's awful to lose one after that amount of time and I'm sorry for your loss

 

[Mr Melt]

Please don't take any of my questions as in any way rude or condesending; just trying to get to help you get to the bottom of things.

How did you sex the angels?

Bloodworm is really not a very healthy diet for fish, and should only be feed once or twice a week, not as a staple, as it's not actually very nutritious. How long have you been feeding them like this?

It's very common for cichlids to get 'fixated' on one kind of food (normally something that's not very good for them!) and you might need to starve them out to get them to take something more suitable.

My best guesses fo what happend are either your pair weren't a 'true' pair, and they've reached sexually maturity and had a dominance battle, or they were a true pair and had some sort of falling out; my first pair of angels spawned many times, and then one day the male suddenly decided to turn on his mate for no reason (he was a black marble too; I've heard since that they can be a particularly aggressive strain of angel).

Or it's some sort of digestive/nutritional problem from an unbalanced diet.

Hope some of that sheds light on your situation and helps you work out what might have gone wrong; angels are beautiful fish and I'm very attached to mine too (another black marble that turned on his mate....will i never learn? ) it's awful to lose one after that amount of time and I'm sorry for your loss

Thanks for the feedback; I sexed the black one by seeing the both of them together, with the black one flashing its papilla (albeit temporarily). Based on that (and the fact that it grew a lot slower than the marbled one; indeed it was markedly smaller then the marbled one even though they were the same age) I made the assumption that the black one was female.

Been feeding them bloodworms for about 2-3 months or so now.....

I'll see about finding a super veiltail replacement within the next week; also about weaning my big tank onto flakes again! I'll also keep an eye out for any signs of bacterial/internal infections on the marble one (and my discus for that matter).

My marble angel looks so sad on his own.... =(

 

[katiefairyinnit]

Allright lads;

I've had my Angels for near a year now (Shadow the female and Marble the male - both are Super veiltails); however this morning I turned my tanklights on to discover Shadow lying on my swordplant, dead. As she shows no discolouration whatsoever I assume she died only recently. The worst thing is that she showed absolutely no signs of illness or strange behaviour whatsoever the night before or during the week.

Check my sig if you are interested in her tankmates and setup - I mean she was in there with GBR's, and they are both fine, so I'm completely stumped as to how she died =/

Quick check of all my fish shows they are all fine; no stress signs or white spot on any of them.

Liquid test kit shows 0.1ppm for ammonia (probably due to a big tank cleaning I did the other day) and 10ppm for nitrates, nitrites are at 0.

I'm devastated like; out of all the fish in that tank I've had them the longest..... =/

Any ideas people?

Sorry to hear about your angel. It sounds like it was just one of those things unfortunately. I guess it happens sometimes and there's nothing you could have done to stop it. If you've had the fish for so long and the rest are fine, I'd say you are not at fault. A similiar thing happened to my blue gourami. She was fine then suddenly died overnight but the rest of my tank were okay. Its sad but don't blame yourself